Staring Contest
by Quintessentia
Summary: Sam knows he's going to win this one. Coda to 6x17. Light Wincest.


So this is a bit of a late coda to 6x17, which I wrote not long after it aired, but didn't like. It still doesn't qualify as my best work, and the tense changed halfway through the piece while I was writing it, so I had to fix that. Hopefully it doesn't show too much, but if you spot any grave grammatical gaffes, please tell me. :)

Just as a warning, this is a **Wincesty** piece, so if you don't like that sort of thing, you probably won't like this. The action is light, but it's there, so please tread with caution. Thanks and Happy Reading!

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><p>Sam loved nights like these.<p>

They didn't come often, that's for sure, and even after the apocalypse was (mostly) successfully averted, he and his brother still spent way too much of their time running from demons and angels and all their kind. Sam hadn't had a good, normal hunt in ages, and that probably said something about him, but he'd rather not think about it, at least not tonight.

He and Dean were cooped up in Bobby's house, and the old man was still lying where they left him, covered up nicely on his couch, the old piece of furniture just as worn-down and aged as he himself had become. Something warm had rekindled in Sam while he watched Dean take care of their surrogate father in ways he might never do if the man had been awake. Dean was a nurturer at heart and it reminded him of when he was little, hell, even just a few years ago, when Dean spent every waking moment watching out for Sam and worrying about what kind of trouble he was getting himself into.

Sam sat there at the table in Bobby's kitchen and smiled tiredly as Dean brought them a second round of beers. The other man had shed his jacket somewhere some time ago, and as usual, his sleeves were rolled up halfway, shirt hanging open, making him look more relaxed than he might have been, Sam couldn't quite tell. Popping both the caps off on the edge of the table, he slid one over to his little brother and sat down across from him.

Sam felt Dean's gaze fix acutely on him, no real warning, just the heat of his brother's intense stare boring into the side of his face, and he had a moment's hesitation about looking at him before he turned.

"What's up?" he asked, arching an eyebrow and trying to seem as nonchalant as possible, "Something happen?"

Dean raised an eyebrow back at him as if to say, '_You mean besides Fate suddenly wanting to make us ancient history?_' and gently clinked the very top of his bottle on Sam's, giving him that look that meant they were about to start a twenty questions war, "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?" he murmured, glancing up at him.

Sam rolled his eyes back, but the smile on his lips was fond, "I'm okay Dean. The wall isn't coming down because I'm not scratching at it or anything and I'm not feeling any weirder than usual. I'm not going to start having nightmares about a hell I don't even remember."

Dean's voice was lead heavy as he spoke, not looking up from the generic label pasted across the brown bottle, "You remembered enough." He answered quietly, as if he had to remind anyone.

Sam clinked his own bottle back in retaliation for earlier, and tried to get his brother to look at him again, "And I'm still fine, okay? I haven't had a bad dream about it yet, and it's not plaguing me every hour of every day. I'm not going to die Dean, I promise, you have to know that, right?"

When Dean met his eyes again Sam could see that they were full of barely subdued panic, and it made his heart hurt, "But that's just the thing, Sammy. I _don't_ know that. Death told me that sooner or later the wall was going to come down and we were going to have to deal with the consequences, and when that happens…damn it, man I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know if I can handle having you collapse on me like that again, it nearly killed me the first time around."

Sam got a brief reminder of the overwhelming mixture of terror and relief in his brother's face when he had first opened his eyes, goosebumps rising on his skin at the memory of the way Dean had walked him to the car, hands firm but trembling on his back and arms. Dean had barely been able to drive without looking over at him every few moments, nervously watching him clutching his head like he was twenty-two and psychic all over again.

"Dean," he tried to reassure his anxious brother, but the poor man just continued to look like his whole world was coming to an end all over again, and Sam felt guilt knot up in his stomach like a sickness.

"It's all my fault," Dean told him, still staring at the bottle in front of him, "I'm so selfish that I can't just let things be, I have go and fuck everything up just to get what I want, and I always end up putting you right in the line of fire somehow, Sammy. That's not what I wanted, not at all. I'm so sorry." His voice cracked near the end, and was so unbelievably awful to see and hear that Sam suddenly refused to put up with it any longer.

"You saved my life, Dean." He told him, voice softer now that his brother was acting so fragile "You brought my soul back from hell at the risk of your own existence. That's more than what I was able to do for you when you were in the pit, and my soulless self just spent six months tearing you down in every way possible, so I'm the one who should be sorry."

"We've covered this Sam," his brother said, voice slightly gruffer than before, "That guy wasn't really you, and you would have done the same for me if our roles were reversed, and you know it. There's nothing to be sorry for."

"I'll stop apologizing if you will too," Sam replied, matter of fact but still gentle, "You just said so yourself that I'd have done the same thing and I would have, because we're both impulsive, self-sacrificing bastards who don't know how else to function."

Dean snorted at that, and Sam shook his head, "I mean it dude, we are so fucked up for each other it's not even funny. Every time I think I'm gonna lose you I get this feeling like someone's sucking all of the oxygen right out the room and I can't breathe. Sometimes I feel like I didn't take a breath again until Cas brought you back after hell, and I was just lying there, asphyxiating to death somewhere in a hospital, unable to wake up from this really sucky dream." Sam knew how wrong that sounded, how much he was laying out on the table for Dean without much preamble, but he also knew how much Dean needed to hear it. His brother was one of the most insecure people alive, and Sam knew that was partly his fault. He was pretty sure that he'd to have to spend the rest of his life trying to beat all those stupid things out of his head that he and Dad had put there all those years ago, but as long as he got to stay with his brother, he knew he didn't care.

Dean just stared for a moment, taking in his brother and whatever it was he had just said, making Sam hope he'd caught all that, because it was a lot to confess to one person just randomly out of the blue. His stare made him feel a little jittery, and his knee started bouncing up and down of its own accord with nervousness.

Then, all of a sudden, Dean's face broke out into a little smile, his whole body coming forward to lean over the table and get a better look into Sam's face. Sam's heart began to beat faster, because whenever Dean looked at him that way, he kind of wanted to kiss his brother, possibly in ways that weren't appropriate among even close family members, and that was kind of just wrong.

Dean didn't pull his eyes away from Sam's, his expression wide open and trusting, and warm in ways that Sam didn't get to see very often anymore, all of which made the blood start pounding in his ears and the rest of the world go still for a second while he and Dean shared this moment, universe suddenly revolving around them both in all the right ways, and it was intoxicating.

Dean's smile got a little wider, and it was then that Sam realized he was going to win this particular staring contest between themselves, no matter how heated it might have been for them both. And sure enough, within a minute his brother had broken down snickering and ducking his head to the side, making him look like a little boy again, and said, "You know I love you too, you giant girl."

The words were meant to be mocking and Sam could take them for what they usually were if he wanted too, but tonight there was something a little different peeking out from under the old big brotherly insults Dean was throwing at him this time around. Sam had always considered himself a risk taker when the situation called for it, and if the look in Dean's eyes was anything to go by, then there was no time like the present.

Surging forward, he did what he'd wanted to do for probably the past few years now, and planted the quickest and lightest of kisses on the corner of his brother's lips, just a gentle tease. Dean's eyes grew wide with the suddenness of it, and then filled with laughter when he saw the half-flushed, half sheepish look on Sam's face, unfamiliarness of it all causing the brightness of his grin to crank up at least a hundred watts. Sam thought he was going to go blind.

'_I love us._' He reflected fondly to himself, and then went back in for the kill.

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><p>R &amp; R, and thanks so much for your time! Toodles!<p> 


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